Making the case for the right to life of every innocent, from Lake County, Illinois

Friday, May 27, 2016

Abortion

The CEO of the Royal College of Midwives must step down over this abortion scandal

By Peter SaundersEditor’s note.. Dr. Saunders is a former general surgeon and CEO
of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organization with 4,500 UK
doctors and 1,000 medical students as members.“BPAS” refers to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service– the nation’s largest abortion provider. This appeared here.The
Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has come under fire for backing the
BPAS ‘We Trust Women’ Campaign, which advocates the decriminalisation of
abortion up until birth.
RCM CEO Cathy Warwick gave her backing to the controversial campaign
back in February, when she said that the campaign had the College’s
‘full support’.
This will surprise the 30,000 midwives who belong to RCM as they were
not consulted at any point. Nor it seems was the RCM board.

98% of women in a 2012 survey said they opposed any rise in the
abortion limit above 24 weeks so it seems that women in general are
strongly opposed to Warwick’s position.
Furthermore, the RCM itself in the 1980s actually supported a lowering of the upper limit for abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks.
So how did an organisation, devoted to the safety through childbirth
of both mother and baby, and with the motto ‘Life is the gift of God,’
come to such a place?
The answer it seems lies in its current leadership. Its CEO, who also
chairs the abortion ‘provider’ BPAS, responsible for 65,000 abortions
per year in Britain, is apparently waging something of a personal
crusade.

Warwick’s proposal is to remove legal protection from babies between
24 and 40 weeks, allowing viable babies in the womb to be aborted for
each and every reason.
In the UK about 8% of babies are born before 37 weeks (a normal
pregnancy lasts 40 weeks), nearly 60,000 premature births every year.
The vast majority of these survive and thrive, and in the best units
like University College London, about 80% of those born at 24 weeks will
live with good postnatal care.
How does one abort a baby at an age at which it would be born alive and almost certainly survive?
One has to kill it first in utero, normally with a lethal
injection, or alternatively, remove it manually piece by piece. Chilling
to think that midwives, trained safely to deliver babies and place them
tenderly in their mothers’ arms, are now supporting their destruction
at the very same age.
Abortion is contrary to every historic code of medical ethics. It is
against the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva and the
International Code of Medical Ethics. In 1947 the British Medical
Association called abortion ‘the greatest crime’.

Two hundred midwives have already signed a letter ‘not in our name’
dissociating themselves from the RCM’s position and thousands more
citizens have called on the College to abandon its policy.
Thus far the RCM has shown no sign of turning. It has published a
statement on its website today replete with specious euphemisms claiming
that it is the victim of ‘distorted and sensationalist accounts’.
But the legal position it is advocating is one where all legal
protection for unborn children will be removed – a law like that of
China and North Korea.
The RCM used to stand for women’s and children’s health. Now it seems to deny the humanity of the preborn baby altogether.

Any society will be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable
members and there is nothing more innocent and vulnerable than a baby in
its mother’s womb.
Warwick is guilty of a blatant conflict of interests. She needs to
step down either from the RCM, or BPAS but cannot continue in both
positions.
Hopefully the board and members of the RCM, rather than complicitly
closing ranks around her, will help her to do the decent thing.